Some farmers in Lagos State under the aegis of the Commercial Farmers Cooperative in Epe have called on the Lagos State Government to urgently intervene in a land crisis in the state.
The farmers alleged that the continued invasion of their land by some military personnel and land grabbers, as well as constant harassment, had limited their ability to continue with essential farming activities.
The Chairman of the cooperative union, Mr. Wale Oyekoya, made these known during a news conference and a peaceful protest held at the Lagos State House of Assembly on Tuesday.
Protesters hoisted several placards with various inscriptions such as “No To Military Invasion, Farmers Are Human”, “No Farmers No Nation’’, and ‘’Sanwo-Olu Compensate Us, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.
Oyekoya said the affected farmers had suffered series of human rights abuses from security personnel who invaded their farmlands in Itoikin, Epe, Lagos State.
The union chairman said over 300 hectares of land had been allegedly invaded, a situation he said had caused huge losses and rendered many farmers jobless.
“This development has greatly and negatively impacted our only source of livelihood which was farming hence disrupting the agricultural sector of the economy,” he said.
He recalled that in 2014, Lagos State government sent a letter to Bama Farms Limited about plans to relocate the farm in order to pave the way for Lekki International Airport.
As a result, he said farmers joined hands to engage late Rotimi Williams, SAN and were subsequently compensated and relocated to the Eluju Mowo/Mutaku area of Ibeju, Epe in 2015 by the administration of Governor Babatunde Fashola.
He, however, stressed that no sooner than they took over the place, farmers started having problems with the landowners popularly known as ‘Omo onile’, a development that paved the way for hooligans to take over y took over the farms.
Narrating the ordeal of the farmers in the hands of the land grabbers, Oyekoya said, “Thugs will come and disturb our farms destroying our crops and steal our livestock and as time went by, they brought thugs and estate developers to destabilise us.